My Musical Career
by AbRaCaDaBrA
Summary: The tale of me, my instruments, my marching, my friends, my enemies, my...MUSICAL CAREER! And...how it's all going to change on Wednesday, April 10.
1. The *chord* Dramatical Introduction

Well, folks, I've gone and done it.  
I still can't believe I finally won.  
But on Wednesday after school, I will be going up to my band director, Mr. Kopcha, taking a deep breath, looking into those glaring, out-of-step-catching eyes of his, and, trying to say firmly, but probably squeaking, the line  
  
"I want to switch to contrabass." 


	2. Early Years: 3rd Grade to 5th Grade

But I'm seriously getting ahead of myself.  
Let me tell you a little about my musical career. Third grade, recorders, with the stodgy, dry, frighteningly stuck in the 70s Mr. Older. My favorite time of triumph with the plastic, noisy little things was the second week of auditions for holiday band.   
Let me rephrase that.   
The second week of standing up in front of the class and playing "Jingle Bells" for the honor of playing it with the other slightly more musically advanced third graders in front of the disinterested student body at the Christmas (excuse me, Christmas/Hanuhkah/Kwanzaa/Ramadan/Yule/etc.) Concert. (Or maybe it was just known as the Winter Concert? Hmm...)  
Well, it was the second week that really got me excited. See, the week before, the only competitors for holiday band were myself and Jenna. Jenna, the math wiz, the kickball queen. Of course she was better than me, and the class made it apparent. So, I practiced my little heart out, and she, being bothered with better things, didn't. So what happened? Yes, folks, little old me sounded GREAT next to the Almighty Jenna! I obviously made it into holiday band along with her and some other people, and it was a beautiful thing.  
  
The next most important thing in my development was being assigned an instrument at the end of third grade. Mrs. Tessler, our music teacher, brought us each down to the music room individually and asked, "What instrument do you want to play?" At first, I wanted to play cymbals. (Yes, just cymbals.) I was entranced by the cymbal-player's effect during a performance of "Star-Spangled Banner". Later, my mother (a percussionist herself) warned that if I made a mistake, everyone would know about it. So, I decided to try the only other instrument that I knew the name of: the flute. My dad and I had practiced on a glass bottle for this very moment, but as Mrs. Tessler stuck that flute in my mouth, no tone, no sound, no nothing appeared from the end of the flute.  
"Hm," she said, cleaning the mouthpiece. "Maybe clarinet?"  
"Clari-who?" I thought. She jammed the thing into my mouth. I blew. A note! She ran her fingers up and down the keys, satisfied.  
"You're our newest clarinet player," she said, writing this down next to my name.  
"Whatever a clarinet is," I thought, leaving the band room.  
  
A few weeks after the beginning of fourth grade, the instruments were in. Imagine more than half of the entire fourth grade sitting out there in the parking lot blowing into tubes they knew nothing about and understood less as they waited for the bus. The poor parents.  
I can still remember the first time I played clarinet - well, by myself, anyway. My dad helped me try to figure out how to put the thing together (namely align those two little platform thingies that connect the two middle sections). Sounded innocent enough, except for the fact that I sat there for hours, trying to play the upside-down mouthpiece. The instrument seemed so long and my fingers felt so stretched that I was afraid of hurting myself.   
Lessons with Mrs. Tessler were another thing. Ah, the good old days of lessons. I can still hear her - "You need THREE GOOD REEDS. Three Good Reeds at all time." I still follow the advice - no, Almighty Command - of T.G.R., even when going to competitions. In my class was Heather, Jeff, Maggie, and myself, and I was probably the worst, right along with Jeff.  
Isn't it funny how he and I are the only bandies from those innocent days of lessons?   
There was Intermediate Band, Advanced Band, and later a Beginner Band. (I don't get it either.) I was always in Intermediate Band...I never made it into Advanced Band, much to the dismay of my mother. I remember, sitting there, listening to a beautiful (well, at the time) song by the Advanced band entitled "Abington Ridge", and coming very close to tears on the realization that I could be up there, part of that beautiful music....*heavy sigh* 


	3. Middle Years: 6th Grade to 8th Grade

The next most important step in my musical career was that fateful Pep Band day in seventh grade. I was best friends with my middle school music teacher, Mr. Risden. Now, back in elementary school, when the middle school band came down to play for us, I remember walking past these strange, long, curvy, black and silver things that I really liked. And, what do you think happened? Yup. Mr. Risden says "We are in need of some BASS CLARINETS."   
So I said, "Great! Sign me up!"  
The only other bass clarinet at the time was a girl in my grade named Laura. She had converted in sixth grade. She's better than me, but not by a whole lot, so our relationship is sort of an uneasy truce. (If you're reading this Laura, just remember, we were MUCH better than Christina and that's what REALLY matters. ^_^ )  
Anyways, so I got attached to my bass clarinet and its whole note-quarter note pure bass lines. I played with Laura all the way through eighth grade, with an absolutely horrible seventh grader named Christina. (And if you're reading this Christina, that's what you get for doing homework during band! So Nyah! o_O )  
Anyways, I was kind of nervous about going into Marching Band. I had heard from non-bandies/os/nerds/geeks (Bleargh. I'm calling it "bandie" from this point on.) that the band students disappeared off the face of the earth from August to November. Not exactly my style. See, I'm in no way, shape, or form popular, but I do treasure my free time. However, Mr. Kopcha (director) came down to the school and gave us a little assembly (yay! Out of class!) about band.... Now it was sounding much better, and I decided, Well, if you don't like it, you can always quit next year.   
So, over the summer, I got sheet music: Irish Party in Third Class, and a long three-part song called Heart, Mind, and Soul. Now, you must remember...We had no marching bass clarinets in our band. I was playing clarinet, my forsaken instrument! Strange how small the keys were...the reeds...the whole dang thing! It took me half a day just to remember how to play it. But besides that...Something interesting about Irish Part is that we played it in eighth grade.  
Let me make some comparisons.  
Bass Clarinet Irish Party: C whole note. C whole note. C whole note. C whole note. C two eighth notes. 3 spaces of rest. C two eighth notes. 3 spaces of rest. etc. etc. etc.  
CLARINET Irish party: Di-dudadudadudadada, Dadadadadada, daduda. Dudadadada, dudadadada, da-da-da-da-dadadah! (Hopefully you've all seen "Titantic" and know what I'm talking about.)  
I hope you can tell that I was a bit flabbergasted.  
Also, I don't have a metronome, and unless I've heard it before, I really have a trouble with sight-reading. This resulted in the only part of Heart, Mind, and Soul being played nearly correctly was a quick upper register F-C-F-C-F-C-F#-C, F-C-F-C, F-F#-C. (Try it, it sounds cool if you can tongue it right.)  
Yes, well, anyway, now I'm going into the first days of band camp. And that's another story. 


End file.
